Sunjeev Sahota - The Year of the Runaways

He collected his luggage, dragging it off the belt, and headed straight out of the automatic glass doors and into the new world.

The niece had been right: his ribbon was one of the least colourful, and it took some time before a short, heavyset man with surprisingly quick strides approached. His yellow shirtsleeves were squared around his elbows, sunglasses on his head.

‘Tar-lo-chan, Indien?’

He followed the man outside. A dry, sandy heat filled the day and two great whorls of sweat swelled out from the man’s armpits, almost meeting in the centre of his back. As if reading Tochi’s mind, the man twisted round and said, ‘No air con outside.’ He spoke reasonable Hindi and said his name was Deniz and welcome to Antep.

They sat in silence on the dinky airport bus that dropped them in the middle of an industrial estate. They walked along the perimeter fence, beyond which women in headscarves and red-stained overalls were eating pastries in the shade. Deniz shouted something across to them and some of them laughed and raised their hands. They seemed to be wishing Tochi good luck. Rounding the corner, some sort of depot came into sudden view, pallets strewn, and Deniz pointed out his truck — the only truck there — a reassuringly huge twelve-wheeled monster. Its black tarpaulin bore a giant image of wet tomatoes on a vine. Deniz gestured for Tochi to wait while he went inside. He returned ten, fifteen minutes later, stapled papers in his hand and a yellowing pillow squashed under his arm. He said it was time to go. Tochi moved to the rear of the truck, but Deniz threw him the pillow and told him to climb in the front.

A beeping sounded as they reversed, then Deniz changed gears and took the road out of the estate. Tochi stared. He’d never felt so high up in a vehicle before. He could see all the way back to the airport, where a plane was taking off, climbing its ramp of air.

He waited outside the cemetery gates, ready to leave, his two months in Paris just as Deniz had predicted. They’d been on the deck of the ferry to Brindisi when the Turk warned that France was the wrong choice for him. London would be much better.

‘London? You understand me?’

The waters looked free and magical, the sun breathily warm on Tochi’s face. He wondered if this was what it would feel like to stand on that southernmost tip of India. The calling sea beyond.

‘Very racist, the French are. Horrible people. The English are much nicer. You should have paid a little more and gone to England.’

‘As long as there’s work.’

‘Not much work in Paris for you men these days.’

Later, as they’d crossed into Austria, or maybe France, Tochi asked him if he meant what he said, about there being no work in France?

‘Did I say that?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s true, anyway. You’ll find out soon.’

‘How much for you to take me to England?’

They agreed on a price and a date. And when Deniz dropped him off at Bobigny gurdwara — ‘All the Indians spend their first night here’ — he reminded Tochi to be waiting outside the cemetery gates and to not tell anyone. He didn’t want half of Bangladesh climbing into his truck and ruining his tomatoes.

He completed a second circuit of the cemetery in case Deniz had meant some other gate, but there was only the one. He sat on his suitcase, rucksack between his legs, and ran a thumbnail in the leather creases of his boots, where foot met shin. Sleeping in the park. Less than one week of work. He was glad to be going. The traffic was sparse, the road lonely. There were apartments for sale in the window of the shop opposite, and there, in its dull reflection, he saw Deniz coming up behind him. His sunglasses shone and on the chest pocket of his red T-shirt a black horse pranced.

‘So! Ready to leave, my friend?’

For the ferry to England, he hid in the back of the lorry. Europe was no problem, Deniz had said, but these English types could be very difficult. Tochi hunkered down, knees tight to his chest and head tucked in. It was as dark as a well. Metal barrels surrounded him — right above his head, too — their clinking the only sound. He fell asleep. At some point he lifted his head off his knees and felt a deep stillness inside him. The barrels weren’t wobbling. The engine wasn’t running. All was peace and darkness. He closed his eyes, though the insides of his lids were painted with images of dying and the dead. He was woken by the rear shutter rattling up. He held his breath, didn’t move. Daylight made a faint blond entrance. There were voices, Deniz’s among them, and knuckles being rapped on the containers. More voices, white-sounding, until the shutter clattered back down. A little later the engine roused and he felt the truck’s clunking descent.

‘This is England,’ Deniz said, when at last Tochi was able to wriggle out. They were in some sort of car park. Shops, white people. Nearby, the grey noise of fast traffic. The sky looked the same as in Paris. Deniz fetched them a plain baguette each and they got back in the front and rejoined the motorway.

‘I thought you said it would only take an hour?’ Tochi said.

‘From Calais. They do less checking in Dieppe. Why, was it uncomfortable?’

‘It was fine.’

Deniz said he’d drop Tochi off in Southall, in London, unless he had anywhere else in mind. ‘My wife’s brother is always saying how he needs waiters. He has a restaurant.’

Tochi stared out of the window. The roads seemed impossibly straight and flat, the fields perfectly hedged in.

‘What do they grow here?’

Deniz said he didn’t know.

‘It looks like spinach.’

‘Perhaps.’

He looked closer. ‘It is spinach.’

‘Why, does it remind you of home?’

‘It reminds me of spinach.’

Two hours later they arrived, parking the lorry half on the pavement. A car beeped, swerved past.

‘There’s your temple,’ Deniz said. He nodded towards a gold dome, princely and Indian against the coming dark. ‘And this is the main road.’

The bus stops — Tochi guessed they were bus stops — showed filmi posters, while passing women retightened cardigans over their kameez, salwaar-bottoms puffed out in the wind like legs of mutton.

‘Are they all illegal here?’

‘No, just Indian.’

He followed Deniz out of the driver’s side, past a travel agent’s called IndiGo and a shop display of sari-draped dummies. Deniz halted outside a fast-food place, cartoon chickens on the window, and told Tochi to wait there a minute. He watched Deniz enter and shake hands with a fat man who kept wiping his nose on his apron. They spoke a while and the fat man lifted his shoulders heavily and gestured around him, in a move that suggested either there was more than enough work, or not enough as it was. As Deniz came back through the door, Tochi stepped away.

‘I’ve got to go but wait inside and Marat will take care of you.’

‘Is there work?’

‘Maybe. He’s not sure. Just wait.’

They returned to the truck so Tochi could collect his bag, his suitcase, and pay Deniz the balance.

‘I hope you make your millions,’ Deniz said, restarting the engine, saying good luck, goodbye.

Inside the restaurant, the fat man — Marat — brought Tochi a can of cola and showed him to a table. He moved his hands so that Tochi understood he should wait there while Marat used the telephone. Tochi nodded, said thank you in English.

It was a busy night. White people, Indian, black, everyone seemed to eat food from here. Even Indian girls came blustering in, in tight tops and skirts. Tochi stared. Another fat man worked with Marat at the counter, while further back two younger men in sleeveless T-shirts operated the fryers. He could easily learn that, Tochi thought.